Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Of the nature of a paradox; characterized by paradoxes; apparently absurd, yet true.
  • Inclined to paradox or to tenets or notions contrary to received opinions: applied to persons.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Of the nature of a paradox.
  • adjective Inclined to paradoxes, or to tenets or notions contrary to received opinions.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Having self-contradictory properties.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective seemingly contradictory but nonetheless possibly true

Etymologies

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Examples

  • I think the term paradoxical is more appropriate than impossible for obvious reasons, but intriguing stuff no less.

    Tech Support Forums - TechIMO.com 2010

  • Medicare reform is desperately needed - it incentivizes doctors in paradoxical ways that are deleterious to patient care.

    Health Care at Last grrm 2010

  • I now turn to Tibetan Buddhism's account of so-called "nothingness," a concept (or non-concept?) only visible to Hegel in paradoxical and oxymoronic terms.

    Hegel on Buddhism 2007

  • The parallels are the same the cruelty, the violence and the absurdity are common to all, likewise the painful compassion and feeling that the author expresses in paradoxical contrast to the fascination that these phenomena obviously have for him.

    Nobel Prize in Literature 1985 - Press Release 1985

  • The violence and the absurdity are common to all, likewise the painful compassion and feeling that the author expresses in paradoxical contrast to the fascination that these phenomena obviously have for him.

    Nobel Prize in Literature 1985 - Presentation Speech 1985

  • The meaning of the word paradoxical may indeed be made the subject of argument.

    George Bernard Shaw 1905

  • At the inception of a renaissance for the forests and oceans, the atmosphere and surviving species, we human beings need again to listen and to see relationally, to learn anew what some refer to as paradoxical thinking and study in the ways of what others call an emotional philosophy for dwelling poetically with the Earth.

    Countercurrents.org 2009

  • At the inception of a renaissance for the forests and oceans, the atmosphere and surviving species, we human beings need again to listen and to see relationally, to learn anew what some refer to as paradoxical thinking and study in the ways of what others call an emotional philosophy for dwelling poetically with the Earth.

    Countercurrents.org 2009

  • What’s truly paradoxical is that many commandments insist that you execute them in the most natural, authentic, and committed way possible.

    Writer Unboxed » Blog Archive » Best Advice: Have More Fun (Stop Worrying and Obeying) 2010

  • The problematical nature of Israel's Jewish culture can be identified as the paradoxical attempt to restore Jews to the world of nations, but to do so by an occult process that remains alien to universal civilization and the standards of science and rationality.

    David Shasha: Dangerous Mystic Motifs in Judaism 2010

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